The EU have said no agreement on the EU's future relationship with the UK would apply to Gibraltar without the consent of Spain. Gibraltar has accused Spain of manipulating the European Council for its own political interests.

This is totally unexpected and quite extraordinary. Either the EU does not understand the relevance of Gibraltar to British history and the strength of feeling there regarding remaining British, not Spanish. Or the EU does understand and wants these negotiations to get very nasty very quickly.

If the EU does not back down, this could derail the negotiations before they get started. The EU has no right to intervene in the dispute between the UK and Spain over Gibraltar.

My own gut reaction to this is to threaten to simply walk away from the negotiations and withdraw security and intelligence co-operation with EU. Great big middle finger.

Last edited by UndercoverElephant on Sat Apr 01, 2017 9:42 am; edited 1 time in total

I am not sure what you mean by that. Spain and the UK take different views about Gibraltar. With the UK leaving the EU the EU is not that bothered about what the UK thinks and will not impose anything on Spain relating to Gibraltar that Spain will not agree.

The eu, if it wants to survive, has to be greater than its parts. It's members have to leave their individual nationalism aside. Yet here is Spain putting a spanner in negotiations, for petty nationalistic pride., perhaps at the expense of other nations and the eu itself. For that sets a tone: a growing sense of self by individual member countries.

If it's the EU playing nasty, then using Spanish nationalism is the wrong way to go about it for the same reason.

Also, who wants to be in a club in which weaker members constantly need protection from the stronger. Says a lot about the club, and those in it. Some union that is. A knife at the throat to match the one at the back. All that builds is resentment from within.

If there was referendum on whether or not the UK should simply walk away as per ue's gut, I wonder how close the result would be.

This is heading towards a multi-faceted impasse. The EU is demanding that the UK pays a huge "divorce bill" before talks on future trade even start. This would be bonkers, from a UK point of view. There's no way a British government is going to accept that, because we have the option of walking away without paying a penny. If we pay what is demanded first, we've given away our best card for nothing. But the EU aren't likely to budge either. If they get into trade talks at the same time as discussing the divorce bill then they'll actually being playing ball - they'll be "allowing brexit to be a success", which, as Juncker has made crystal clear, cannot be allowed to happen.

What this boils down to is pretty simple really. The only way a reasonable compromise can be reached is to discuss all of the important issues in parallel. The EU is refusing to do this because they do not want to reach a reasonable compromise. It is not in their interest to do so, because they would see that as encouraging other countries to leave the EU. The only sensible response from the UK is to walk away without paying any divorce bill at all, and prepare for life outside the EU with no trade deal at all. Inevitably this will mean setting up a "low tax economy" on the shores of Europe. Play dirty. Or at least, we need to threaten to do this, and mean it.

I am not sure there are even going to be any "brexit negotiations". Not only will they not end within 2 years. They aren't even going to start.

Continue to offer support and cooperation in terms of European-wide security

Make our own trade deals

Fall back on WTO tariffs with the EU, if necessary

Walk away

It's what should have happened immediately

Yes, basically, although there is one glaring issue that is going to cause a problem with this strategy. That is the status of UK citizens living in EU countries and EU citizens living in the UK. This is of massive importance to all of the people involved, and simply walking away isn't really an option unless we accept that everybody has to move back home again. Personally I'd be happy to see everybody forced to move back home again, but unlike the things on your list above, I don't see it as politically workable. In other words I think there has to be some sort of negotiated settlement on that, or at least an attempt, even if we walk away from everything else. What is not acceptable is to allow EU citizens to stay here while UK citizens in the EU are forced repatriate.

Yes, basically, although there is one glaring issue that is going to cause a problem with this strategy. That is the status of UK citizens living in EU countries and EU citizens living in the UK. This is of massive importance to all of the people involved, and simply walking away isn't really an option unless we accept that everybody has to move back home again. Personally I'd be happy to see everybody forced to move back home again, but unlike the things on your list above, I don't see it as politically workable. In other words I think there has to be some sort of negotiated settlement on that, or at least an attempt, even if we walk away from everything else. What is not acceptable is to allow EU citizens to stay here while UK citizens in the EU are forced repatriate.

While any agreement has to be a two way street I doubt if it will come to everybody moving back to their home countries. It would be much cheaper and easier to do if anyone that was a net tax payer to the country they were living in now was allowed to stay in place and keep their nose to the grind stone. Why would they kick out someone they were making a profit on and why would you?

Yes, basically, although there is one glaring issue that is going to cause a problem with this strategy. That is the status of UK citizens living in EU countries and EU citizens living in the UK. This is of massive importance to all of the people involved, and simply walking away isn't really an option unless we accept that everybody has to move back home again. Personally I'd be happy to see everybody forced to move back home again, but unlike the things on your list above, I don't see it as politically workable. In other words I think there has to be some sort of negotiated settlement on that, or at least an attempt, even if we walk away from everything else. What is not acceptable is to allow EU citizens to stay here while UK citizens in the EU are forced repatriate.

We would mostly get retired people returning from the Costa Del Sol etc. with their associated medical and care costs. I suspect that many of the higher skilled ones would either get sponsored to stay or move on somewhere else. In return, we will lose a big chunk of workers from the NHS (already very stretched) and all the Eastern Europeans who do our crappy jobs on minimum wage (eg fruit picking, cleaners, picking/packing, etc. etc.).

Can't see our 'benefit class' taking up the slack...
Granted, there might be some more opportunities for school leavers / older workers...

Why would they kick out someone they were making a profit on and why would you?

Because unlike the part of the world you live in, most of Old England is severely overpopulated. It is not really about "profit". There is a myth among some types that immigrants from the EU come here to "benefit scrounge" and take advantage of the NHS, but in most cases the reality is very different. They came here to work, because they can earn more money here than they can back home in Poland. But regardless of how this might be seen as "boosting the economy", in reality it just puts ever more pressure on housing and public services, while driving down the wages of working class people who were born here.

I'd be perfectly happy to see every EU citizen currently living in the UK sent home, even in the knowledge that this meant a significant number of British-born pensioners currently living in Spain would also have to return to the UK. Yes, this would in the short term put even more pressure on public services, especially the NHS. But pensioners will die quite soon, without producing any more offspring, whereas the working-age EU citizens who'll be going the other way are still producing families. Long term, everybody going home is in the UK's best interest, IMO. But I very much doubt it is going to happen.

Continue to offer support and cooperation in terms of European-wide security

Make our own trade deals

Fall back on WTO tariffs with the EU, if necessary

Walk away

It's what should have happened immediately

Yes, basically, although there is one glaring issue that is going to cause a problem with this strategy. That is the status of UK citizens living in EU countries and EU citizens living in the UK. This is of massive importance to all of the people involved, and simply walking away isn't really an option unless we accept that everybody has to move back home again. Personally I'd be happy to see everybody forced to move back home again, but unlike the things on your list above, I don't see it as politically workable. In other words I think there has to be some sort of negotiated settlement on that, or at least an attempt, even if we walk away from everything else. What is not acceptable is to allow EU citizens to stay here while UK citizens in the EU are forced repatriate.

Okay, one more to the list:

All EU existing citizens given leave to stay/granted UK citizenship contingent on the EU doing the same in return with British expats.

Parliament supreme until you make your first trade treaty (hell, even joining the WTO will reduce sovereignty). I think the main issue isn't tariffs, it's keeping to the standards expected for goods, at least for our exporters to the EU (who appear to be stuffed at this point).